


Shouldn’t

by languageintostillair



Series: After an Almost [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cersei Lannister and Jaime Lannister Are Not Related, Developing Relationship, F/M, I'm not tagging this Angst because this part doesn't strictly have much of it, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, but just know that you are signing up for it by reading this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24218854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/languageintostillair/pseuds/languageintostillair
Summary: He’d said they can take it as slow as she likes.Jaime had said that, two years after she’d left for Winterfell. Two years after she’drun toWinterfell, after she’d finally told him how she felt, after he’d told hernoin response. Two months after she’d come back to King’s Landing. Days after she’d sent him that first text.If you don’t still need my sweater, do you think I could have it back?Well. She has the sweater back. And Jaime—He’d said they can take it slow.It’s what theyshouldbe doing.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: After an Almost [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662541
Comments: 59
Kudos: 146





	Shouldn’t

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I’m back here again after finally finishing [The Assignment](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711024)! I have another four parts planned in total for this second “cycle” of the story, after which I’ll mark this series complete (though I may revisit this verse some day). I know a few of you have mentioned wanting to read Jaime’s POV, but I’m still mainly interested in sticking with Brienne’s. There’s something compelling to me in that tension between wanting and not really wanting to know the other person’s past. Still, Jaime will be more open about his side of the story in these four parts.
> 
> I don’t want to spoil the story too much, but just a reminder that it explores how two people have to grapple with this pre-existing trauma between them, even if it was unknowingly inflicted by the other party. And there are, uh, certain aspects of romantic relationships that can become flashpoints as a result. I am not in the business of unhappy endings, but these two have some shit to work through.
> 
> Also – I went back into the last bit of the previous part of this series and made some edits. The ending didn’t change, I just wanted to unfold some of it a little more. I’m still not sure I’m entirely happy with it, but I do think it’s better than when I first posted it.

He’d said they can take it as slow as she likes.

Jaime had said that, two years after she’d left for Winterfell. Two years after she’d _run to_ Winterfell, after she’d finally told him how she felt, after he’d told her _no_ in response. Two months after she’d come back to King’s Landing. Days after she’d sent him that first text. **If you don’t still need my sweater, do you think I could have it back?**

Well. She has the sweater back. And Jaime—

He’d said they can take it slow.

It’s what they _should_ be doing.

But now they’re sitting, absurdly, with a doorway between them. With their hands joined between them. The remnants of the past two years between them, and the years before that—their shared joy, as friends, and the pain she had to hide because of it. All the corners they’ve bared of their souls, and all the truths they’ve yet to tell—these lie between them too. Raw, still beating.

Beating faster.

Now what?

She’d had the courage to look in his eyes, just a few moments ago, when she’d agreed to—to—what had she agreed to? To try? To not let go of… of a chance that it _could be good_? What exactly does that entail—they should talk about that, shouldn’t they? But she’s staring at the floor again, at their hands, at the crack beneath her bedroom door open to the left of her, and if she can’t even look in his eyes, how could she expect to talk about what saying “okay” actually means?

She wills herself to look up again, but she only gets as far as Jaime’s chest, his chest in _her_ t-shirt, and—it’s too much. Seeing him. Being seen. Being seen looking at him, drinking him in, getting lost in him. That’s what she was always afraid of, back when they were friends—that Jaime would catch her doing it. That he’d see through everything and reach into her and scoop out all of the feelings that she spent half the time convincing herself that she didn’t even have.

Then, he’d laugh at her. Or worse, pity her.

And he’d say no.

But—that was two years ago, three. Yesterday afternoon, in his car, he’d said yes, hadn’t he? He’d said it last night. This morning. Just now. Yes. _Yes_. She shouldn’t have to worry—she should have a _right_ to look in his eyes and have him see the _yes_ in hers.

She’s not sure, yet, if he’ll find it there. _Yes_ is emphatic, absolute, unwavering. _Okay_ , was the answer she’d given.

( _Okay?_ he’d repeated, and she hadn’t known what to do with all the delight she could hear in his voice.)

So, Brienne can only stare at the floor, at their hands, at the crack beneath her bedroom door open to the left of her. She grasps his hands tighter though, to make up for it. _He’s real_ , she thinks, as if she hadn’t already seen him outside his office building a few days ago, or in the coffee shop yesterday, or in her living room last night. In Winterfell, so far away and with no word of him at all (she’d wanted it that way, she reminds herself), he’d felt like—like a phantom. Though, more than a few times, she’d stopped in the street when she’d passed a man as tall as him, or with hair like his, thinking he might have… he might have come after her after all. Despite how things had ended between them.

_He’s real._

_This is real._

When Jaime next speaks, he doesn’t call attention to her averted gaze, or the strength of her grip. Instead, he says, “Not to spoil the moment, but… can we… move somewhere more comfortable? My back is—”

“Oh!” She lets go of his hands, and scrambles to her feet. “Sorry. We can—the couch.”

She wills herself to glance at Jaime again—briefly, _barely_ —but he’s not looking at her now. He’s standing up, too, and she thinks he might be looking in the direction of her bed. It’s just for a second, but she feels this rise of panic anyway, feels the heat rushing to her cheeks, and she almost pushes Jaime out into the hallway. She closes the door tightly behind her.

On the couch—where it’s safe, and familiar, where they’d sat so many times as friends, where he’d fallen asleep on her shoulder before, where she’d almost fallen asleep on his once, until her cheek had realised it was resting on flesh and bone and she’d jerked her head back up as if she’d been scalded—he takes her hand.

She tries not to flinch.

“I’ve missed this,” he says.

“You’ve said,” she replies, curtly, and regrets it immediately.

Jaime just chuckles. “I mean, sitting on this couch with you.” He lifts their hands. “This is new, though.”

She takes his wrist with her free hand then, and slips her other hand from his. “Jaime—”

He sighs. “I know.”

_Does he?_ She lets go of his wrist. “I—We should talk about this.”

He sinks a little deeper into his seat. “We should.”

“We need to—to learn how to be around each other again.”

“I know.” He tilts his head up at her. “Do we have to do it right now?”

She looks at her fingers, wiggles them slowly. They feel like they don’t belong to her, now that they’ve been held by Jaime. “I suppose not.”

Jaime tries to reach for her hand again, but she shifts it slightly before she can stop herself. _Shit._ “I’m sorry,” she says, “I—”

“No. Don’t be. I—Maybe I should get going.”

“Oh.”

A weight lifts at the thought of Jaime’s impending departure, but she can’t tell if it’s due to some sense of loss, or relief. She thinks her face must have fallen, though, because he says:

“I just mean—maybe you need some time. Maybe we both do. This… I didn’t expect things to go this way either. I’d _hoped_ , but…”

He trails off. She gives him a silent nod.

“Hey. I still want this. Okay?”

She nods once more, and curls her fingers into tight fists. “O-okay,” she manages to stammer this time, digging her fingernails into the flesh of her palm.

“We can—I’ll call you later? When I get home?”

“Okay. Yeah. C-call me later.” _Call me later._ They’d never agreed on _call me laters_ before. Jaime used to just… call if he needed to. Especially when his right hand was still recovering, and he couldn’t be bothered to text her with his left. _This is faster_ , he’d said, when he’d called her for the fifth time in a day, even if all he’d had to text was an **Ok** in reply.

Jaime looks down at himself, at the t-shirt and sweatpants that she’d lent him last night. “I should—I’ll change. Into my clothes.”

“Yes,” she says, stupidly.

He’s already making his way back to the guest bedroom when Brienne remembers why she’d offered it to him in the first place. He’d _walked_ , he said. And his apartment isn’t near hers at all. She heads towards the guest bedroom too, where he’s left the door just slightly ajar. “Hey,” she calls out, “do you want me to get you a cab?” She lives on a quiet street; he wouldn’t be able to hail one on a Sunday morning.

“I’ll walk,” he replies. “It’s nice out.”

Again with the _walking_. “It’s too far,” she says, stepping into her bedroom to pick up her phone from where she’d left it on the ground. “It’ll take two seconds, I—”

She hears the door open behind her, and when she turns to face him, he’s _shirtless_. Of course he is. She’s _seen_ him shirtless—she’s even seen him shirtless in _her_ sweatpants before, and it might even have been the same pair—but this is _different_.

They aren’t friends any longer.

“Oh, he says, “I didn’t tell you I moved.”

“Oh.” She swallows.

“Yeah.” He leans against the door frame— _shirtless_ —and folds his arms. “It’s maybe… twenty minutes away?”

“Twenty minutes—”

“Walk.”

“That’s—”

“Close. Well, clos _er_.”

Brienne frowns. “You said you were going to get a cab last night.”

“Twenty minutes isn’t _that_ close when you’re drunk.”

“You also said you weren’t drunk.”

“Fine.” He unfolds his arms. “ _Tipsy_.”

He steps back into the room, pushing the door closed but with such bare minimum effort that it’s left ajar again. Before she can see anything she isn’t quite ready to see through the gap—she wonders, fleetingly, if he might have left that gap on purpose—she walks back towards the living room, and sits herself down at the dining table.

He _moved_. It must have been—after the divorce. And he chose to move closer to—

No. She shouldn’t make that assumption. He didn’t even know for sure that she was back in King’s Landing till this week.

Then—why did he ask to meet at the usual place? The cafe right next to the main entrance of his building?

“Your clothes,” she hears him say, and she looks up to see him back in his outfit from last night, holding her t-shirt and sweatpants out to her. “Where should I—”

“I’ll—” Brienne reaches towards him, “I’ll take them.” She feels the warmth of the just-worn cotton in her hand. “Jaime—if you moved—why did you want to meet at the cafe?”

Jaime furrows his brow. “It’s our place,” he answers, matter-of-factly. “I wasn’t just suggesting it because it was—convenient.”

“Oh.” She grips his— _her_ clothes a little tighter in her lap. “I thought you… you liked your old apartment,” she comments, and it’s the closest she can manage to asking, _why did you move? Why did you move to a place twenty minutes’ walk from here?_

“I did like it. But it had—I wanted a clean slate.” Then his eyes widen a little, and he adds, “I never—the cafe. I never brought her there.”

It hadn’t really dawned on Brienne till he said it—or perhaps she hadn’t wanted to think about it at all—that besides his apartment, Cersei might have been with him in all the same places she had been with him. “It’s right there,” she says, emptily, and she realises then that she half expects him to reveal that he’d lied.

“Yes, but—she was never really a coffee person. Not that I would have—I mean, I think, part of me felt like it was something that… that was for us only. You and me.”

She wants to laugh. She doesn’t know what else to do. “You make it sound like—”

“I know what it sounds like,” he interrupts, and there’s this bitterness in his voice that she can’t quite understand. “Shit, Brienne. I don’t know why I did most of the things I did.” He comes a bit closer, shuffles his feet, and she has the strange thought that he’s about to _kneel_ before her. But he doesn’t. “I’ll… Why don’t I go,” he tells her instead. “And we can—I’ll call you when I get home.”

She nods. She stands from the chair. She leaves the clothes on the seat. She walks Jaime to the door. Something about this feels— _wrong_. This isn’t how… How does it work for regular people? They agree to go on dates; they decide they like each other enough to keep going on dates; they realise they only want to go on dates with one person—that’s how it seems to work for everyone else. Gods, regular people don’t fall into… into whatever the fuck this is. What is this? What are they?

Perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised. She and Jaime—they’ve never been _regular people_.

“Alright,” Jaime says, once she opens the door for him. “We’ll talk later.”

“Alright.” She fiddles with the handle of the door. “Get—get home safe.”

“I will.”

He takes one step out the door, a half step, then he stops. Turns. It must take her three seconds longer than it should to comprehend what happens next.

His lips are on hers.

_Fuck._

“Bye, Brienne.”

Then, he’s gone.

She’s still holding the door open.

She lifts the fingers of her other hand to her lips. “Oh,” she says out loud, though there’s no one around to hear it.

It was, embarrassingly, her first kiss. And she’d barely realised it was happening before it was over.

She might have stood there for ten minutes after she’d let the door close. She has no idea what to make of what just happened—it was her _first kiss_ , damn it, she has no frame of reference for it. How would she describe it? Soft? Like a kiss on the cheek, except—

She has no frame of reference for it. She scarcely even has a _memory_ of it.

The ten minutes after are spent sitting on the couch with her phone in her hand, waiting for Jaime to call. Seven save her, she’d just spent the past two years doing everything in her power to forget he ever existed, and now she’s just sitting here, doing nothing _except_ waiting for him to call. She doesn’t even know what she’ll say when he does. _What the hell was that?_ comes to mind. Or perhaps she’ll say nothing at all, pretend it never happened. Her first kiss. They’ll just move on to the second, then, and the third. And then she clutches her phone a little tighter, because there’ll be a _second_. And a _third_. And—

Her phone rings.

“Hey. I’m back,” Jaime says. She can hear a door closing in the background. He’d called her as soon as he got home, it sounds like.

“Why did you do that?” she blurts out.

There’s a pause. “Why did I… kiss you?”

“Yes.”

“Because I wanted to.”

She closes her eyes, lets those words sit for a second before she replies. “And you assumed I wanted to.”

Another pause, then a sigh. “Shit. I’m sorry. I should have—”

“You should have.” It comes out angrier than she feels. “You said we were going to take it slow.”

“I’m sorry. I just—I wanted you to know that I—”

“It was my first kiss, Jaime,” she says, helplessly.

A pause again, a long one, long enough for her to start worrying what he’ll say at the end of it ( _Seriously? Your first kiss?_ ), but all he says is:

“Shit.”

It shouldn’t make her feel this way. She’d wanted to be kissed. She’d wanted to be kissed _by Jaime_. But it had been so long since she’d even considered it a possibility, no matter how remote, and then it happened, and _she’d barely realised it was happening._

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and he sounds as helpless as she had.

_It’s just a kiss._ “I’m pathetic,” she breathes, though she hadn’t wanted to say it out loud.

“Don’t say that,” he almost hisses, but his tone softens with his next words. “I’ll—I’ll make it up to you. Tell me how to—”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I _do_. I’ll—gods, can I—I promise I’ll—I’ll ask you next time, and it’ll be the best second kiss anyone has ever given—”

It’s so ridiculous that she has to laugh. She’s twenty-nine, which would make Jaime thirty-seven, and here they are, talking about second kisses. “Jaime,” she scolds lightly.

“Brienne,” he says, mimicking her tone. “I told you—this is new to me too. You’ll have to—to tell me when I fuck up.”

She’s nodding before she realises he can’t see her. “Okay. I’d say the same for me, but I—”

“Somehow I feel like I’ll have to tell you you’re _not_ fucking up.”

That wasn’t what she had meant to say—she’d wanted to say something like, _I’m going in assuming I’ll be fucking everything up_ , and of course that would have proven him right already. “I’m scared, Jaime,” she decides to tell him instead. It’s easier to tell him on the phone, when he isn’t in front of her, trying to hold her hand.

“Me too.”

She hears the sound of keys dropping on a table, or a counter. It reminds her again that he moved, moved to a place twenty minutes’ walk from hers, and she dares herself to say: “Hey—can I ask you something—and if you think I’m crazy for asking it, will you promise to forget I ever asked?”

“I promise I won’t think you’re crazy for even asking it. How about that?”

“Fine,” she huffs. “Why did you move—” she isn’t sure how best to phrase it— “why did you move to—”

“You mean—why did I move so much closer to you?”

It sounds silly already—or worse, self-centred, or worse still, paranoid. “Forget it.”

“I didn’t want to… I thought you would think _I_ was the crazy one.”

“Oh.” So he—

“I… I didn’t really set out to do it. I saw this place about half a year ago. I liked it. And maybe. I don’t know. Part of liking it was—being near some of the places we’ve been together. And knowing I might see you around.” He laughs, and she thinks it sounds a little nervous. “Gods, that’s weird, isn’t it? I promise I wasn’t trying to stalk you or anything.”

Maybe it is a little weird. But perhaps there’s something weird in how she’d hid her feelings too, while being friends with him for so long, so she’ll consider them square. “I wasn’t here to be stalked, anyway.”

“You really didn’t come back at all for two years?”

“Not till two months ago.”

“You’ve been back for two months?”

Right. She’d never told him that. “Took me awhile to… to decide to text you. About the sweater.” The sweater that she’s still wearing. The sweater that she’d thought smelled of his apartment, the one he no longer lives in.

“Speaking of the sweater. Now that we’re… talking again.” _Talking. Kissing._ “Can I have it back?”

“No!” The _nerve_ of him. “I bought it. It’s mine.”

“I had custody of it for years. That must count for something. We can work out an arrangement.”

“No. It’s staying with me, and you’re not taking it again.”

“Visitation?”

“Supervised.”

“Of course. I’ll have my lawyer draw up the paperwork.”

She laughs. For a moment, it feels like—like before.

“So,” Jaime says, tentatively. “Can I visit it next week?”

She doesn’t respond at first. She doesn’t know how to.

“Or we don’t have to—to meet at your place—”

“I don’t—I don’t mind that.” He’s been here so many times before, really, though there’s a voice inside her that whispers, _this is different. You aren’t friends any longer._

“Tell me when. I’ll make time. I can do dinner most weekdays—tomorrow, even.”

_Tomorrow_. That feels so soon. Before he left her apartment, he’d just said they needed time. “Saturday,” she offers, and then _that_ doesn’t feel soon enough. Still, she doesn’t think she should take it back. They can take it slow, he’d said.

“Saturday”, he repeats.

“Give me—Jaime. Give me some time. To think. I’ll—you can have me the whole of Saturday.” Then she winces, because _you can have me_ wasn’t how she’d meant to phrase it at all. “And we can—we’ll talk,” she continues, hurriedly, before he has the chance to linger on _you can have me_.

“Can we do other things besides talk?” _Kiss._ “I don’t mean—I mean, like lunch. Or a movie.”

“Yeah. We can do that.”

“It’s a date, then.”

She can almost hear his smile through the phone, and now she’s glad he isn’t here to see her blush, and tease her for it like he used to. “Sure,” she says, even though she hardly feels sure at all. “It’s a date.”

**Author's Note:**

> I threw in their ages there a little late in the game, but yeah, I’d already imagined Brienne is in her late twenties, and Jaime in his mid-to-late thirties.
> 
> There’ll be a bit of a time jump next chapter. The idea for this one was to lay the groundwork for potential struggles in their relationship, but also maintain some degree of optimism.
> 
> Thanks as always to [Roccolinde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roccolinde)! And I’m on [Tumblr](https://shipping-receiving.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
